The present invention relates to systems and methods for processing elongated materials, and in particular, to systems and methods for end squaring and/or dividing elongated materials.
In processing a rigid elongated material, such as a wood board or panel, a manufacturer generally must adhere to a given set of cut, quality and dimensional standards. In the past, various machines have been utilized to hold, square and divide the elongated material. For example, a typical sawing machine may include a number of stationary, rotating saw blades that divide a large wood panel into a number of smaller panels. The large wood panel is typically held and fed into the saws by a conveyor system, such as by a chain-driven system of lugs or holding blocks. In order to move the entire large panel through the saws at the same time, the chain-driven system may include a number of endless chains spaced apart along the length of the large panel. The endless chains are interconnected by a head shaft that is connected to a single motor such that each chain, and hence each corresponding lug, moves the panel through the saws at the same speed.
Such a typical sawing machine cannot consistently produce panels within the given set of cut, quality and dimensional standards, however, as the lug position on each endless chain can change as the endless chain continually wears or stretches over time, or moves upon the occasional crash of the machine. As a result, typical sawing machines require a tremendous amount of maintenance to insure the lugs are consistently in the proper relative positions. Further, there is a limit as to how much a lug position can be adjusted before a new chain must be installed. For instance, because the endless chains are driven off of the same motor by the head shaft, when one chain becomes stretched the position of its lug(s) will always be moving relative to a non-stretched chain. When the amount of chain stretch produces lug movement that results in “out of spec” sawn product, such as a panel that does not fall within a squareness specification, then the stretched chain must be replaced. Installation of a new chain is even more costly than routine maintenance, as the sawing machine must be shut down and thus loses valuable production time, and as the chain itself is extremely expensive.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method of insuring that an end squaring and dividing machine produces elongated materials that fall within defined cut, quality and dimensional specifications while reducing maintenance costs and machine down time.